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You need a high tolerance of ambiguity to believe both that culture shapes
things and that we as humans have a lot in common.
                                        -- paraphrase of Phoebe Ellsworth

I have long puzzled over S. J. Gould's insistence that we abandon the
nature-nurture dichotomy in favor of the potentiality-actuality one (1). A
recent piece by Ehrenreich and McIntosh in _The Nation_(2) has helped me
to clarify the issue to myself. This debate is relevant to the Chomsky
list *generally* because there are far-reaching political implications
seldom discussed and *specifically* because it bears on the psychology of
politics which lies at the genesis of this thread. So, another warning is
in order -- even more psychobull is forthcoming. I would further like to
note that many if not all of the recent posts to the Chomsky list under
this subject have implicitly accepted the nature-nurture position.

I thus begin my contribution to this debate.

Biologist Russel Gray (3) has pointed out that barn owls in at least one
instance underwent radical behavioral changes -- from generalist feeders
to perch and wait predators, from territorial loners to social roosters,
along with a cascade of other changes -- all as the apparent result of the
human introduction of a rat population into their habitat.

If barn owls can actualize what seemed beyond their genetic endowment then
it actually must have been within their potential all along, and so humans
can do likewise. Claims made by evolutionary biologists about the genetic
and hence innate and unalterable underpinnings of human territoriality,
sexuality, greed, and violence, when made to explain the behavior of men
and women and by extension the organization of society, may be completely
illusory and unintentionally (?) apologetic to the dominant politcal
realities gripping the globe today.

In clarifying what I mean in what follows, the personal and political
implications of which outlook we adopt -- nature-nurture or
actuality-potentiality -- creep in. (Of course, which is true has some
bearing on all this, as well, but we haven't even tried to implement the
second option and we won't know the truth or falsity of either until we
do.) As to clarifying:

Nature-nurture requires that we find socially acceptable outlets to
express our aggression. Historical violence, greed, etc. would be viewed
as a brutal necessity. The best we could hope to achieve would be a future
of enlightened transcendence over our genetic endowment in which these
personally and socially destabilizing but essentially human factors play a
diminishing role until they eventually wink into nothingness by the heroic
actions of morally perfect beings. Apparently, this outlook leads to
moralism and mysticism. Furthermore, spontanaity and mind-expansion in the
form of intense experience and hallucinogens would always be rightfully
feared less they penetrate our carefully applied veneer of morality and
unleash the dastardly nature of man.

Actuality-potentiality, on the other hand, requires us to foster the
personal, political, and social conditions under which non-violence,
generosity, magnanimity etc. are fully actualized and violence remains
entirely a potentiality or at most an indulgence under our control. That
is our responsibility. Also, we would have to regard historical
institutions in our culture and in others that allow and perpetuate
destructive violence, greed, territoriality, etc., as avoidable tragedies
and wasteful actualizations of human potential. Spontanaity, intense
experience, mind-expansion, etc. needn't be feared as they would be daring
explorations into the individual motives and possibilities of life.
Apparently, this outlook leads to understanding and spirituality.

From my [over]statement, I hope that it's clear -- it's getting clearer
to me -- that these are two distinct alternatives that would give rise to
different cultural traditions and patterns within personalities, families,
polities, and societies. For sure, this is a subtle but important
scientific question with far-reaching ramifications. Maybe we not only
need a "tolerance for ambiguity" as Ellsworth puts it, but a tolerance for
contradiction as we realize that, for example violence, and non-violence
are both within our potential and whether the one or the other is
actualized is in a very real sense up to us.

This is where the combined psychohistorians and developmental depth
psychologists like Robert Godwin, Stanislaw Grof, and Lloyd deMause --
some of whose ideas I've shared in this forum -- come in. They have
embraced the actuality-potentiality paradigm enlightened by their
experiences as psychologists in an attempt to understand, among other
things, the psychological roots of politics, war, peace, violence, etc.

What they've found is that the actuality of the frightfully violent,
sensibly hot, suffocating, and enraging birth experience of humans (4)
contrasted against the less violent, relatively benign, and frequently
satisfying womb experience establishes a template for the potential
development of actual patterns of violence, rage, and rejection in the
pattern-recognizing and -projecting brain. If anything, the brain's nature
is to recognize and participate in patterns, not to be violent or
non-violent.

If the initial template existent in the neonate's mind is reinforced by
physical and/or emotional deprivation and abuse as it develops into an
infant, then into a todler, then into a child, then into an adolescent,
and then finally into an adult, the potential pattern of violence, fear,
anger, rage, their various manifestations, and defenses against them
become actualities. If, however, the initial template is undermined such
that the whole birthing experience can be viewed as an anomaly and the
world more akin to the safe, nurturing womb, then rather different
patterns of thought and behavior are established -- ones that you can
recognize in mentally healthy, and relatively mature adults like Noam
Chomsky and Stephen J. Gould.

Getting back to my own initial puzzlement of why Gould has advocated the
potentiality-actuality outlook with such rhetorical force over the
nature-nurture position: it is, in part, because he wants to acknowledge
the plasticity and adaptability of our predicament as humans. But more
importantly, I've begun to sense political motives, or at least political
implications, in Gould's position -- put forward sincerely from his
scientific perspective -- in which he emphasizes the attainability and
worthiness of solutions to political and institutional shortcomings. What
Chomsky and Gould sense implicitly, Lloyd deMause, Stanislaw Grof, Robert
Godwin and the other psychohistorians have begun to explicitly tease
out by genuinely scientific inquiry. (5)


(1) "Genes on the Brain" and "Nurturing Nature" _An Urchin in the Storm_

(2) "The New Creationism: Biology Under Attack" _The Nation_ June 9, 1997

(3) "Metaphors and Methods: behavioral ecology, panbiogeography and the
evolving synthesis" _Evolutionary Processes and Metaphors_ Ed. by M-W.Ho
and S.W.Fox

(4) In the animal world, human birth is unique in these respects owing to
the size of our brains. Birth is traumatic for us unlike it is for dogs,
bears, monkeys, cows, and the rest of our mammalian cousins because our
melon-heads must pass through the cucumber-sized birth canal. This
contrast was made abundantly clear to me just this weekend when I went to
Punto Ano Nuevo to see the elephant seals congregate for matters
reproductive on the California coast north of Santa Cruz. Before me were a
few hundred seals. Suddenly, dozens of gulls descended to the ground to
feast on something. It was explained that this was a sure sign of the
birth of a newly born seal. It's typical, apparently, not to notice the
birth itself since it passes so uneventfully, but the gulls feasting on
the afterbirth couldn't be missed. I then tried to imagine myself failing
to notice the birth of an infant while specifically awaiting for something
eventful to happen among a hundred people on a beach. It would be
well-nigh impossible.

(5) How I got through this entire post without discussing epigenesis, I
can't quite figure out. Nevertheless, it is important to this whole
discussion. Note that Chomsky works on the prototypical epigenetic human
behavior -- language. By studying language, he wants to discover and has
discovered innate structure and patterns of the brain and mind. Gould has
looked for and found patterns of epigenesis in the fossil record -- the
concept of the spandrel is among his most famous discoveries. The
developmental depth psychologists look for the patterns extant within the
brain arising from the templates established epigenetically at birth
because they've found them manifested in human cultures across time and
place. It probably is not a coincedence that they all share a politics
that matches a definite pattern of hope, tolerance, and freedom from
irrational authority.